Miera fire, December 2021 Miera
The fire started on 25 December 2021 in Miera, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 123 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 142th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 102 in Spain in 2021, of 122.
The power measured by the satellite is low (0.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Soba · 2026Soba · 2024Selaya · 2021Selaya · 2026
- Burnt area
- 123ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Dec 2021 – 25 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
25 Dec 2021 · 1 MW · 1
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 26 Dec.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2019, 35 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 39 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
123 ha reached on 25 Dec3.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land81 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
- Agricultural areas1.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Dec | 11.2 °C | 65 % | 40 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 0 |
| 26 Dec after | 10.9 °C | 67 % | 47 km/h | 3.7 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 28 December 2021 the air beside the fire reached 7 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,596 haSobaFebruary 2026 · 4 days · 9 km away
- 2,579 haSobaJanuary 2024 · 6 days · 9 km away
- 822 haSelaya20 February 2021 · 1 day · 9 km away
- 1,540 haSelaya24 February 2026 · 9 days · 10 km away
- 903 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 2 days · 11 km away
- 1,745 haVega de PasFebruary 2025 · 5 days · 13 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Miera fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 December 2021 and 25 December 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 123 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Miera (123 ha, 3.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Miera. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 11.2 °C, humidity dropped to 65 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Spain (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.